


Cold as Death Itself

by PoptartsUnlimited



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Dad Gabe, Established Relationship, Hypothermia, M/M, gratuitous use of North Cascades, mainly about the relationship between Jesse and Gabe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9649607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoptartsUnlimited/pseuds/PoptartsUnlimited
Summary: Jesse McCree gets separated from the team during a botched mission to the frigid North Cascades. With night falling and the weather deteriorating, the situation very quickly becomes dire. Fighting an injury and hypothermia, last thing he needs is to be discovered by a Talon agent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on an idea from Volkreg (aka the Keeper of Dad Gabe) of the McHanzo Discord. Thanks to Dealusis for doing beta!
> 
> (Other story I've got going is not abandoned! Just taking a short break and I'll be back at it.)
> 
> Note: Originally I had a "graphic depictions of violence" warning here, but as all the violence happens "off-screen", i have removed it. My initial plans for this story ended up being a little different than the final result, hence the change.

As far as snowy nights in mid-January went, this one was hardly the coldest Jesse had experienced. It was well below freezing and the air was crisp and dry, but it was not the sharp, all-consuming cold one could find out in the Midwest. Instead, it was a creeping, insidious chill that worked its way slowly through boots and gloves, numbing a man so gently that he might not even realize it until he tried to use his hands.

It was nevertheless a kind of cold that could kill.

Most of his life, Jesse had spent the winters down south of here, where in the lowlands the snow hardly touched the ground except on the coldest of unusual days. Even in the Southwest, though, snow fell heavily in higher elevations. When he was young, he had stupidly set out alone to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon after the road had been closed for the winter, eager for adventure in the unfamiliar conditions that snow provided. He had complete freedom: no one knew where he was going, there was no phone service for miles, and his car had enough gas to get him there and back easily. By his teenage judgement, he had gone prepared.

Had he not been able to push his car out from the snowbank he accidentally drove into that day, he would have died before ever seeing the Canyon. To this day, he had still never seen the North Rim in winter. If he learned anything from his mistakes, he would never need to.

Unlike that day over twenty years ago now, today he had gone prepared and not alone. At least, he had started out not alone. Now, trudging slowly through powdery snow, he was the only one for miles, as far as he knew.

That morning there had been three of them: Ana, Mei, and himself. In this weather, Mei was in her element; Ana was unused to it, but enjoyed the change from the heat to which she was accustomed. 

Their task had seemed a relatively simple one. Locals from the nearby town of Winthrop had noted suspicious trucks seeming to make deliveries to the National Forest, a story corroborated by local park rangers. It seemed like a mundane problem for the local authorities until they received a tipoff that the trucks matched two of those seized by Talon three months prior. 

Jesse had found Winthrop surprisingly fun to visit at least. A western theme town, it was one of the few places where they had traveled in which his normal getup did not look completely out of place.

He pulled his right arm closer to his body, flinching as the movement sent a stab of pain through his muscles. Things had gone to hell not long after they began their search for the suspected Talon outpost. Mei was good with maps, which helped immensely, but she was not quite a natural fighter and neither she nor Ana had seen the grey-clothed Talon fighter that leapt from behind a tree and shot her down before he had time to put a bullet through his skull.

Mei would live, with Ana’s help and a quick evacuation. In her estimation, the shot to Mei’s leg was not particularly serious, but they would not be sure until she was in the care of Angela.

However, Jesse’s part in this was not over yet. Even as Ana rushed to Mei’s aid, he had seen a flicker of grey dart through the pines. Leaving the other two to wait for rescue, he had gone on ahead to track down the runaway Talon agent.

Tracking him through the deep snow had been easy enough. Equipped with snowshoes, he was much faster than the barebooted Talon fighter. He dispatched him easily and continued to follow the tracks back to a disappointingly small outpost. It was disappointing to him, at least. Some of the data on the drives he managed to recover would probably be useful to someone, just not himself. It probably had been useful to the Talon agent who managed to put a long gash in his arm before he shot him in the face.

It was then that he had received warning that the transport for Mei and Ana had been held up by a sudden snowfall. _Do not return to them_ , he had been warned, _in case you are followed. Go south instead, and we will meet you before you come to the road._

Thirteen miles lay between him and the freeway. _Unlucky_ , he thought, stumbling as his snowshoe sank deep into a drift. With the flurry of soft flakes falling around him, travel was slow and laborious. At first he had felt nearly overheated from the effort, but as the daylight disappeared, so did the warmth.

His arm throbbed painfully, the bandages he had hastily tied around it to try to staunch the wound doing nothing for how much it hurt. The cold made the wound bleed freely, leaving a trail of crimson spots of blood every few yards, contrasting harshly against the white snow. Although now it seemed to have finally ceased bleeding, a dark patch had spread around the slash that marred his black coat. It had been a nice jacket, a gift from someone who cared about him. He was sorry to have seen it destroyed like this.

Clouds gathered grimly as evening wore on and the sky turned to a deep grey indigo. When the snow began again, it was so light that he could not be sure exactly when it had started. The sight of it unsettled him.

Even more unsettling was the realization that his communication line had been silent for an unusually long time. Feeling a twinge of uncertainty, he held a numb hand to his earpiece, flinching at the sensation of the ice cold material of his gloves against his cheek.

To his surprise, the communicator seemed to have turned itself off. Coming to a stop, he waited for it to reboot before trying again.

“ _GPS signal currently unavailable_ ,” the voice announced unhelpfully in a crisp, pre-recorded tone. “ _Communications signal currently unavailable_.”

“C’mon Athena, you’re better than this,” he growled. His breath formed clouds in the air like white smoke. “When was the signal lost?”

“ _Signal lost at 1648. Current time is 1712_.”

This must be some sort of dead zone, then. It should not have surprised him, what with the mountains that surrounded him on all sides. Losing communications was unusual, though. Only very rarely did teams get sent places as remote as this wilderness.

“Right, I’m gonna need to leave a message.” He looked around behind him, seeing nothing but trees and an ever-increasing snowfall that rapidly erased his tracks. While it meant that enemies would have a nearly impossible time following him, it also meant that his own team would likely have difficulty finding him as well.

“ _Messages will be delivered when communications signal becomes available_.”

“Understood,” he muttered.

“ _Begin recording._ ”

The abruptness of it caught him off guard. Without a signal, all interactions with Athena were based on recording only. He missed the almost comforting interaction of speaking with true AI. Shaking off that feeling, he began to speak.

“Uh, McCree to Overwatch. Whoever is doing the evac, it’s getting awful cold out here right now. Snow’s started up again. My arm ain’t getting any better, either. I’d appreciate evac soon as possible. Honestly, this weather’s got me a little worried. Over.”

He sighed, leaving the communication line open in case a signal became available. Unwillingly, he began to trudge onward through the snow, one foot in front of the other. Pausing for a moment, he pulled his compass from his pocket with his prosthetic hand, the only part of him that did not feel stiff and clumsy. The arrow still steadfastly indicated that he was going south, the direction he had been instructed to go. If only his transport team could actually find him.

Light at first, the snowflakes falling around him began to fall more thickly, piling on his shoulders and catching on his hair and beard. Earlier, Mei had giggled that he looked like a mountain man in the snow like this. She would have loved seeing him now, he thought. Distractedly, he wondered how she was doing. Better than she was when he had last seen her, hopefully.

Despite the shelter of the trees around him, the sudden flurry of snow made it difficult to see more than a few yards in front of him. Earlier, he had packed away his red serape in his backpack to avoid standing out in the trees. Being tracked down by Talon seemed fairly unlikely now, with the arrival of nightfall on top of the dangerous weather. Shivering slightly, he caved to his desire for warmth and pulled the serape from his backpack, wrapping it snugly around his shoulders. Chilled as he was already, it did little to help with the cold, but at least it was comforting.

Night fell quickly. He briefly tried lighting his way with a flashlight, but found it unhelpful with the thick snowfall around him. All the light did was bounce back off the snowflakes and leave him blinded. At least the white snow contrasted enough with the trees that he could still pick his way through the forest.

His serape flapped at his shoulder as an icy wind cut through his jacket. Shuddering, he wrapped his injured arm in the woolen fabric, blinking against the wind with ice-stiffened lashes. Wind-whipped snow stung the exposed parts of his face. Although he had complained bitterly at trading his customary cowboy hat for a beanie for the sake of this mission, he was grateful now. At least he could wear his hood up without it.

He could almost feel his core temperature dropping in spite of his precautions. Wincing as a puff of snow dropped off of an overhanging branch onto his head, he tried to remember something he had once read about people being able to raise their temperatures by willpower alone. It seemed unlikely that he could do it, but maybe it was worth a shot.

Instead of focusing on how cold he was, he tried to think of warm things. The desert the midday sun, the warm rocks of Gibraltar, a hot mug full of soup… his mind wandered to the last thing he had told Hanzo before they left. “We’ll meet up in Winthrop and I’ll get you some nice hot cocoa. Maybe an Irish coffee if the mission turns sour.”

 _Definitely an Irish coffee_ , he thought dryly.

Hanzo, Fareeha, and Reinhardt had been scheduled to meet them that evening after their successful mission in Vancouver. By now, Jesse would already be late to the meeting.

He could probably do without the Irish coffee if he could just warm himself up in Hanzo’s arms instead, he decided. A strong shudder wracked his body as a sharp gust of wind hit him in the face. Squinting through the wind, he could just barely make out a place ahead of him where the trees seemed to thin. For a brief moment he almost thought he had made it to the highway. Rationality took over a moment later. There was no way he could have walked that far already. Eyes fixed on the clearing, he cautiously made his way forward.

A sudden crack startled him, making him stumble into a soft drift. One snowshoe sank deep into the powder, sending him to his hands and knees, the snow reaching all the way up to his elbows. A jolt of pain surged through his injured arm even through the numbness of the cold as his hand struck a log buried beneath the surface. Reeling back to his feet clumsily, he scanned the forest warily to locate the source of the noise. All around him he saw nothing but conifers, their branches laden with the weight of the snow. A branch had probably snapped under the load, he decided. He pointedly tried not to think about the possibility of being stalked by a cougar, or worse, a grizzly bear ravenous from its hibernation.

Struggling on, he felt a dull pang of disappointment when he realized that the clearing was nothing but some frozen body of water. Certainly not a road or any other sign of human habitation. At this point he would have almost preferred coming across another Talon outpost. Although it would be hard to shoot well with his hand so numb, he preferred his chances against a few Talon agents to his chances against the untamable weather.

Sucking in a sharp breath so cold that it hurt his teeth, he again clumsily pressed a button on his communicator.

“Overwatch, this is McCree again. Not looking too good right now. I don’t know where y’all are at, don’t know when you’ll be gettin’ this message, but I’ve got no sign of transport yet. Just passed uh… looks like a big sorta lake on my right. That’s uh, to the west. Don’t know how much longer I can keep going though, honestly. Getting pretty tough. So uh… whatever you can do. Hope y’all are safe. Over.”

He sighed heavily, wincing slightly at the unpleasant sensation of the insides of his nostrils freezing in the cold. Only rarely had he been in weather this frigid. The last time was in Siberia. That time at least, despite mishaps, the team had managed to maintain their communications signals the entire mission. How they had done that there but not here, less than twenty miles from civilization, was beyond him.

His head bent against the wind, he plodded onward, his steps growing increasingly labored as time wore on. The snow that piled on the tops of his snowshoes began to feel as if it were weighing down on his boots, dragging his feet towards the earth. After passing a boulder that seemed eerily familiar, he tried to take his compass from his pocket again, only to find his hand too numb to do so. He breathed on his gloved hand in an attempt to warm it, to no avail. The material was too thick for any warmth to pass through now that he was so thoroughly chilled. Trying his metal prosthetic instead, he was dismayed to discover that it too was unresponsive. The nerves in his arm must have been too numb for the device to function.

If he was unable to even dig something out of his pocket, he would also be unable to shoot, he realized dully. Even though his gun was no help against the weather, he felt strangely vulnerable knowing he was essentially unarmed.

For a brief moment, he considered trying to stop and light a fire, but he quickly dismissed that thought. It was too windy, too cold, and too snowy to consider such an idea unless he managed to find shelter of some kind. With only his lighter and a few cigars to burn, he doubted he would be able to make much of a fire under the best of conditions, much less the middle of what was beginning to look like a blizzard.

A flicker of movement up ahead of him made him jolt with surprise. He stopped dead in his tracks, unsure of what he had seen. Moments ago he could have sworn that among the trees there was a human figure. Blinking away the snow from his eyelashes, he could make out nothing out of the ordinary. A shiver running down his spine, he angled away from the spot, knowing it was irrational, but nevertheless unnerved.

The wind had only grown stronger as the night wore on. Knocked off balance by a sudden gust, he stepped on one of his snowshoes and fell again face first into the snow.

He lay there for what seemed like an eternity before summoning the strength to surge back to his feet. His body swayed from the effort, forcing him to lean on a tree to stay upright.

One of the snowshoes had come loose in his fall. If he were not so exhausted, he would have taken the time to buckle his boot back in. Doing so now seemed like an insurmountable challenge. Against his better judgement, he awkwardly kicked off the straps of the other snowshoe until both his feet were free.

He knew instantly that this had been a mistake. His legs sank deep into the snow with every step. Walking would have been difficult even if he had been healthy. Wounded and freezing as he was, it was nearly impossible.

Fighting his way onward in rapidly weakening desperation, he shuddered violently as the cold seemed to tear through his clothes. The world around him blurred, an endless patchwork of trees, snow, and charcoal grey sky. His mind wandered aimlessly through the events of the past few years. People flashed through his memories in a confused jumble of enemies and allies, Deadlock and Blackwatch and Overwatch. He felt heartsick when he thought of Hanzo waiting for him to return from this mission. What were the chances now that he would ever see him again?

When he next caught sight of something moving in the trees ahead of him, he felt too numb to make any effort to avoid it or even acknowledge it. Maybe it was an animal, perhaps an owl hunting despite the storm. It could just be something caught in the wind, junk carried into the forest from the road. No living man would go out in this weather if he wanted to stay that way.

He was not sure what caused him to fall the next time. It could have been a tree well, or possibly a stick partially buried in the snow. Most likely, his legs had just grown too stiff and clumsy for him to continue. His head rested against his serape, the only thing between his face and the snow piled around him. He felt tired, so tired that rising to his feet seemed impossible. Before he went onward, he needed to rest, if just for a little while.

A voice in the back of his mind told him that this was dangerous. If he rested now, he would likely never get up. Succumbing to exhaustion like this likely meant that he was entering severe hypothermia. He imagined Hanzo scolding him for giving in so easily, snapping at him to get up and keep going. With a last rush of strength, he willed himself to get to his feet.

But try as he might to force himself up, he simply could not do it. Slumping back against a pine tree, he stared blankly into the howling wind.

His arm almost too numb to move, he somehow through monumental effort managed to activate his communicator.

“Uh… McCree t’ Overwatch,” he said, his words badly slurred through chattering teeth. “Can’t go an’more. Jus’… too cold, can’t k-keep on. Lost m’ snowshoes. If y’re h-here… I’ve stopped. ‘M sorry. Over.”

“ _Message recorded. Message will be delivered when –_ “

“I needda send ‘nother,” he muttered. “Private. Um… A-agent num’er one f-four…”

Somehow his mind blanked on Hanzo’s number. “Hanzo,” he said.

Blessedly, the software understood what he meant. “Recording message for Agent Hanzo. Begin recording.”

He coughed involuntarily. “Han-Hanzo,” he choked out finally, his eyes filling with helpless tears. “’m so sorry, Hanzo. Di’n’t think this’d happ’n.” Coherent words were hard to find. “Miss you lots ri’ now. I… I love you so m-much,” he said, his voice breaking. “I love you. Stay… stay safe f’ me, o-okay? …Over.”

His tears froze to his lashes as he slumped against the tree, his cheek pressed to the rough bark. Even through the frigid air he could smell the bark’s faint scent of vanilla. He let his eyes close, sighing heavily as he tucked his face into the folds of his serape, seeking the last vestiges of warmth.

This was not so bad a place. It was beautiful here among the trees, flocked white with sparkling snow, the comforting smell of vanilla nearby. It was one of Hanzo’s favorite smells, he had found out. If only he could have shown him these trees. Before, he had known what they were called. Their name escaped him now.

He shuddered heavily as the wind picked up again, biting through his clothes. A dark shadow fell across his eyelids, an unexpected movement against a white background. Unwillingly, he forced his eyes open, his eyelashes pulling painfully with ice.

He was hallucinating. There was no other real explanation for what he saw before him: a hooded man, clothed all in black, his face covered with a mask like the face of an owl. Dark tendrils of smoke wreathed his body, giving off an unnatural stench. In his hands were two massive shotguns, both pointed mercilessly at Jesse’s chest.

Despite his monstrous appearance, the dark figure was familiar to him. It made no sense that he was here, or that he was pointing guns at him. Nevertheless, he was unmistakable. Most knew him as a monster, the terrorist called only Reaper. He knew him as someone different.

Had Jesse been in any normal state of mind, he might have been scared. Angry, at least, to be caught so helpless, moments away from certain death with no way to fight back. Peacekeeper was useless to him when he could hardly move his arms. Instead of fear, he felt resignation. Fitting for his death to arrive clothed like a corrupted shadow of an old friend.

“Y’ gonna shoot me?” Jesse whispered hoarsely. His voice barely carried over the wind.

The gunman made no response, neither lowering his weapons nor pulling the trigger.

“I’m n-not gettin’ outta here,” he continued. “Gabe. I-I don’t know why y-you’re here… now…”

He trailed off, noticing even through the haze in his mind that the figure had seemed to flinch when he said his name. “Gabe?”

The man’s masked face tilted downward, as if looking away. Slowly, he lowered the shotguns.

When he spoke, his voice was rough, bearing an eerie, hollow timbre. “Jesse.”

It was a statement, not a question. A confirmation, possibly.

“Yeah,” he answered.

Gabe watched him silently, giving no clues to his intentions. The wind whipped his long black coat, the stiff fabric snapping audibly at his heels. He holstered his shotguns, his broad shoulders slumping.

“Jesse,” he repeated. “You need to get up.”

He blinked, surprised by this incongruous statement. “Not – not gonna shoot me, th-then?” he stammered through chattering teeth. A slug to the brain might be a better way to die than what he knew he faced otherwise.

A puff of dark smoke rose from behind the owl-like mask as Gabe huffed softly. “No,” he said flatly. “You need to get up now, Jesse,” he ordered. He made no move to come closer. “You can’t stay here.”

Jesse groaned softly, managing little more than a twitch in response.

“You need to move or you will _die,_ ” Gabe said firmly.

Although he had known it before, the urgency in Gabe’s voice prickled at the back of his mind. If Gabe was telling him this, there must still be a chance. He had not given up on him yet.

Slowly, clumsily, he shook off some of the snow that had piled on his body. Frozen in rough icicles, his hair struck against the side of his face, making him cringe. Gritting his teeth, he leaned into the tree, trying to pull his feet under himself. The little feeling he still had in his legs made them seem stiff and uncooperative, folding beneath him before he could even manage to stand. Eyes flickering to Gabe desperately, he forced himself to try again. Cold-numbed pain lanced deep through his injured arm as he clumsily wrapped it around the tree trunk. Panting from the effort, he managed to pull himself a few inches up the side of the tree before collapsing back to the ground.

“I can’t,” Jesse confessed, giving a small shake of his head. He was not one to give up easily, but he knew defeat when he saw it. “You can h-help me?”

Gabe took a half step forward as if to help him, then seemed to think better of it. Shrinking away again, he let out a rasping breath.

“In this form, my body is as cold as death itself.” His voice was low and growling, thick with resentment. “I cannot touch you.”

Somehow, dismaying as it was, that was not unexpected. The faint hope that Jesse had briefly held faded once more. “Stay with me?” he whispered.

Gabe’s rough voice softened. “Of course, Jesse.”

He bowed his head, his body still wracked by involuntary shivering. “I jus’… di’n’t wanna go yet,” he admitted, letting his eyes close once more. Part of him still believed this was still all happening in his head, that he was arguing with Death himself rather than Gabe. With the image Gabe had taken on, it was hardly a stretch.

Several moments passed before Gabe responded. “Tuck your hand under your serape,” he instructed. “Keep your feet underneath your body and your face covered.”

It was pointless, but Jesse complied the best he could anyway, burying his face again in the wool of his serape.

“Soon it’ll be morning,” Gabe said. His voice came from closer than before, close enough that Jesse could feel the chill emanating from his body. Over the now-fading sound of the wind, he just barely made out the sounds of speaking through a communications link. “Your team is looking for you.”

 _Too late_ , Jesse thought, but he made no comment.

Gabe seemed to know what he was thinking. “Don’t you dare give up on me,” he hissed. “I know you well enough to know you can get through this.” Even with his unearthly tone, Jesse could hear an earnest note of fondness in his voice.

Part of him wanted to respond with something contrary, like he would have done when he was younger and working for Gabe. He felt too tired to say anything, though. All that escaped him was a sigh.

“You see how it’s getting lighter?” Gabe asked after what felt like hours, but could not have been more than a few minutes. “The sun is coming up. You can hold on until then.”

At some point, his eyes had closed. Whether the sun was rising or not, he did not know. He was beginning to feel less cold, though, so maybe Gabe was right. Maybe when the sun rose, he would be able to get up and press on. For now, he needed sleep.

Gabe’s voice cut sharply through the tired fog in his mind. “Jesse! Look at me, Jesse. Open your eyes.”

It was just too much with the tiredness that had sunk deep into his bones. Only rarely had he heard that concerned tone in Gabe’s voice. He wanted to tell him that everything would be fine, but talking seemed like too great a challenge.

He heard a soft crunch of snow nearby as Gabe stepped closer. The unearthly cold he had felt before near him was gone now. “Come on, Jesse.” His hollow voice was strained with worry, nearer than it had been before. “Stay with me now. Stay with me.”

He was hardly going anywhere, though. He was staying. Why Gabe seemed so upset confused him. He would be right here for Gabe when he needed him…

The sound of Gabe’s voice faded into the wind as he finally slipped out of consciousness.

\--------------------  
Static-warped talk filtered idly through his short-range communicator as Gabriel watched soft snowflakes pile on Jesse’s inert body. Tearing the Talon communicator from his ear, he threw it angrily down to the ground, paying no mind to what happened to it.

He had failed. Despite finding Jesse in the middle of the woods, in the middle of a snowstorm that bordered on being a blizzard, he had been unable to do anything but watch as his life slipped away.

Pale, half-buried by snow, Jesse looked as if he were already gone. Only the too-bright glow of his soul gave him any indication that Jesse was not yet completely lost.

Talon would have him take that soul for himself, he realized, disgusted by the mere thought. In these last few years, he had killed more good people than he could count, but Jesse was different. He had brought him back from an adolescence of reckless lawbreaking, taught him to care about the people around him, and by extension, himself. Many times over the years, he had saved his life – and a few times, Jesse had saved his. As much as he despised Overwatch and all its members, Jesse was something else entirely. He was Jesse. The closest thing he ever had to a son.

His eyes closed under a soft white blanket of snow, Jesse seemed almost peaceful now. Anger rose in Gabriel’s chest again as he looked on. The sheer wrongness of it all was overwhelming. Jesse was always on the move, always fighting, always doing something. If he were going to die, he should have died out in the desert, firing that gun of his until the end, laughing in the face of death as he had always done when he was younger. Not like this, slowly drained of blood and warmth in the middle of a dark forest.

A particularly loud alarm from his discarded communicator caught his attention. Swooping down to pick it up again, he listened silently as an agent urgently announced the approach of an Overwatch team in his immediate area.

 _The search party_. His heart leapt with an emotion he was no longer accustomed to feeling: hope. Turning back to Jesse, he offered him a few more words, a soft prayer that felt unnatural on his lips after all these years. Before he could think better of it, he spun and left. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he hunted Overwatch not to kill one of their number, but to save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of a combination writing exercise with an idea that I'm not too familiar with (dad Gabe) and a location that I am (North Cascades). If you guys ever end up out there, Winthrop is super fun!
> 
> North Cascades is a notorious location for having poor communications. The topography makes establishing a signal very difficult. Also, trees that smell like vanilla are ponderosa pines.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding a lost teammate in the vast wilderness of the North Cascades presents a formidable challenge even under the best of circumstances. Lack of reliable communications and the aftermath of a devastating snowfall make it nearly impossible.

Ana was quick to accept the blame for McCree’s disappearance.

Debriefing with the Vancouver team in the early hours of the morning had been difficult. Although she defended her choice to have McCree split off from the team rather than to abort the mission, she conceded that asking him to meet them at the road later for transport was a mistake. The sudden storm had arrived nearly without warning, but proper research should have revealed the communications dead zone before the mission began. As head of this particular operation, her assumption that communications would be normal in the area was inarguably negligent, as Hanzo had reminded her repeatedly.

Hanzo had ranted in frustration long into the night, pacing the crowded hotel room almost incessantly. She could hardly blame him, knowing what Jesse meant to him. Not that he had meant nothing to her, either. Over the years she had spent training him, she had grown fond, almost protective of that ruffian from Blackwatch. He had changed since the recall, but he was still Jesse. Her final order to him, while calculated, now felt like a mistake.

No one slept that night. Ana spent much of the night alternatively fielding calls to Winston, Angela, and Okanogan County Search and Rescue in a largely unsuccessful attempt to coordinate a rescue effort and keeping tabs on the snowstorm. To the relief of the whole team, Angela had called in around two in the morning local time to confirm that Mei was out of surgery, awake, and expected to make a full recovery.

She had nothing good to say about the snowstorm, however. “With temperatures so low and high winds, it would take only a few hours before becoming dangerously hypothermic,” she warned. “An injury such as the one he received prior to losing contact would only increase the danger.”

The weather finally cleared just as the sun began to rise. Poring over maps as Fareeha guided the transport to the location they had planned to rendezvous with McCree, Ana tried to think of all the ways that he could have become misdirected. If he had made it to the road, his communication system should have come online again. It seemed most likely that he would have followed a ravine, or possibly a stretch alongside the lake where the topography was less steep.

She had been over all of these maps before, charted out likely routes, and by the end of the night had weighed just about every possibility she could imagine for how McCree could have disappeared.

Returning to the same charts was probably not a productive endeavor, but it distracted her from the images that had started running through her mind ever since McCree had fallen out of contact: Jesse fatally shot by Talon agents, unable to call for aid. Jesse frozen under feet of snow, waiting for a transport that never arrived. Even Jesse mauled by a winter-starved grizzly bear, his revolver next to useless against its thick skull.

There were too many possibilities. Finding him calmly standing by the side of the road was laughably unlikely.

Fareeha’s voice crackled over the intercom, jolting Ana from her thoughts. “Arrival in about two minutes.”

With a sigh, Ana dismissed the maps from her datapad, stowing it away in the pack she held under her seat. Her gaze flickered up to meet Hanzo’s, seated across from her. He looked away, his face drawn, hands clenched tightly around his bow. He jumped slightly as Reinhardt abruptly stood up and stomped over to the exit of the transport vehicle, his heavy footfalls echoing in the uninsulated interior.

“We _will_ find him,” he said firmly, in a tone more confident than the situation called for. Other than Fareeha’s announcements, his were the first words spoken since they had left civilization.

No one replied. Hanzo knelt stiffly to drag his snowshoes from beneath his seat. The way he pulled the straps around his feet seemed awkward compared to the ease with which Ana strapped hers onto her boots, as if he had never done it before. Clattering with every step, he followed Reinhardt towards the door, pausing briefly to pull on a pair of insulated gloves modified for archery. His jaw was set in a stoic grimace, but his eyes had a desperate look to them that even he was unable to hide.

“Arrived at planned rendezvous point,” Fareeha announced from the front of the transport. “No sign of him, from what I can see. I’m not picking up a signal, either.”

This was to be expected. They still had communications here; if Jesse had made it to this point, his communications and tracker would have come online again. “Can you tell in which direction the communication signal weakens?”

Athena answered before Fareeha could. “ _Communications signal weakens to the east._ ”

“How far east?” Ana asked as the transport door opened. Hanzo followed close behind as Reinhardt rushed out with his typical restless abandon, kicking powder snow high into the air. He was the only one of them who they had been unable to fit with snowshoes. Apparently no one made any big enough to support a giant.

“ _Approximately four kilometers_ ,” Athena answered promptly. “ _Weakened communications are apparent in an eight square kilometer range, mainly in areas of lower elevation._ ”

Eight square kilometers was a massive area to search for a missing person. Ana did her best to hide her dismay. “Thank you, Athena,” she said curtly. “Fareeha, we may be out of contact with you while you stay behind.”

“I know,” she replied. “I’ll still be in contact with Athena and Gibraltar. I’m capable of guarding a single transport.”

Ana shouldered her supply pack and rifle, kneeling down briefly to tighten a strap on her snowshoes. “I am aware of that,” she said. She stopped herself short of mentioning how disadvantaged she would be here without her customary Raptora suit. It was impractical for the wilderness conditions, leaving her armed with only standard weaponry. With this she was capable, but nowhere near as formidable an opponent as she usually was.

“Be safe,” Ana added.

There was a brief pause before Fareeha answered. “You need to be safe as well,” she said. Another brief silence followed. “Bring him back.”

“ _Inshallah_ , Fareeha.” Her voice softened. Despite all of Ana’s attempts to keep her daughter away from Overwatch (and especially Blackwatch) when she was young, Fareeha and Jesse had become friends early on. The news of his disappearance had left her shaken.

Stepping cautiously down onto the snow, Ana started off after Reinhardt and Hanzo. The three of them quickly split up, taking three different parallel tracks through the trees. Winston had judged the chance of Talon attack to be low enough to justify the risk of searching separately, if it meant improving the chances of finding their missing teammate. Ana could only hope that his calculations were correct. She knew better than to think any of them would face favorable odds in an ambush in this wilderness.

The deep blue of the pre-dawn sky gave way to a bright gold that broke through the clouds as the sun finally rose over the horizon, the pines casting long shadows across the snow. Last night’s storm seemed a distant memory, marked only by the fallen tree limbs that littered the drifts. Snowflakes fell intermittently, so lightly that she was not sure if they were falling from the sky or merely blown from the tree branches by the gentle breeze.

She had only limited experience with snowshoes, but as she had the day previously, quickly found herself falling into a rhythm. The powdery, freshly-fallen snow made it more difficult than it had been previously. Holding her rifle made using the sort of hiking poles many used while snowshoeing impossible, hindering her speed. Her feet sank deep with every step, often forcing her to watch where she walked rather than searching the woods.

It was too early to expect to find McCree anyway. If Athena was right about the communications dropping out around four kilometers from the transport, it would likely take nearly an hour of trekking across forested land before they even had a chance of finding him.

Despite the sun peeking through the clouds, the morning remained frigid. Ana imagined the comments that Reinhardt would usually make about a day like this, alternating between joking complaints and bold assertions that such weather was good for the heart. Today he was as quiet as Hanzo.

As expected, Hanzo reached the communication boundary first.

“ _Switching to short-range communications_ ,” his voice crackled through Ana’s communicator. Short-range communication always had more distortion than their usual system. It was considered an emergency backup for a reason.

“Acknowledged,” Ana answered back, her statement echoed by Reinhardt. “Agent Hanzo, what is your location?”

She listened as he read of his coordinates. He had made good time, she thought, comparing his location to her own. His speed was especially notable given that he had taken the westernmost track of any of them, over the most difficult terrain.

Reinhardt reached the boundary next. By the time Ana herself reached it, both of her teammates had forged onward, deep into the communications dead zone.

Her voice slightly strained from the effort of walking through the snow, she activated her communicator’s short range mode and addressed the team once more. “I’m at the boundary. Keep in mind that he is wearing black.”

“ _He had his serape in his pack,_ ” Hanzo replied almost instantly. “ _He would have used it last night. We should look for red._ ”

“Good memory,” Ana commented. “Keep an eye out for red, then. He’s too clever to have left something that bright in his bag if he wanted to be found.”

“ _That is, unless he was worried about Talon finding him_ ,” Hanzo continued. His voice seemed distant and fuzzy from the distortion, making it difficult to understand him at first.

Ana frowned. “Red or black,” she said eventually. “Although with any luck if we’re close enough we’ll be able to pick up his short-range signal ourselves.”

“ _How close would we need to be?_ ” Hanzo asked.

“ _About a kilometer_ ,” Reinhardt cut in. “ _Possibly less in these mountains_.”

A sigh of frustration sounded over Ana’s communicator. “ _Not far enough,_ ” Hanzo growled.

“It will have to do,” Ana said firmly.

She turned the volume on her communicator down to facilitate her search and walked on, gaze darting over the snowy terrain for any sign of the red or black she had mentioned earlier.

There remained the possibility that even if they reached Jesse, they would see neither color. It was entirely likely that he had been completely buried by the snow. As much as she hated thinking about that possibility, it was one she needed to consider.

One of her snowshoes felt as if it had grown heavy over time. Grimacing, she stopped and lifted her foot to see that a chunk of ice had somehow encased the crampon of her right shoe. She kicked it off against one of the pines, shaking the last few shards off before looking up and turning back to her track to continue onward.

She recoiled instinctively before she could even comprehend what she saw. Blocking her path stood a man, wreathed in smoke as black as his clothing, his face hidden beneath a hood and a deathly pale mask of a barn owl. Recovering swiftly, she brought up her rifle to aim squarely at the man’s black-clad chest. For a half second, time stood still as she and the dark figure stared each other down.

A single gunshot shattered the morning stillness. She released the trigger in time to see the man disintegrate into smoke and reform a few feet closer, unscathed.

Urgent voices rang out through her communicator, but their sounds seemed strangely muted as the dark figure took a step closer, his heavy, reinforced boots sinking deep into the snow.

“You hesitated.” His reproachful voice had a ghastly tone to it that no human voice should ever have. He took another step forward, tilting his masked head as if intrigued by her delayed action. “I thought better of you, Ana.”

“Some of us still find it difficult to kill our old friends, Gabriel,” Ana said coldly, taking aim at his masked head. He stopped where he stood. “What did you do to him?”

“To whom?” Gabriel asked. “To Jesse? I did nothing to him.”

Ana’s finger held steady on the trigger. “Then why are you here?”

“The same reason you are.”

“That makes no sense,” she objected. “What did you _do_ , Gabriel?”

He shifted, his hand brushing against the paired shotguns at his hips. “I did nothing to him,” he repeated. “You were the one who condemned him. You betrayed him, Ana. You left him to die. He trusted you, and yet you sent him into certain death.”

Her blood ran cold. “Is he dead?” she asked, suddenly breathless. “Did you find him?”

“I found him.” Smoke curled around the edges of his mask with every word he spoke. “I must admit I don’t know if he’s dead, but if not it won’t be long.”

“Where is he?” she demanded.

Gabriel shifted, taking a moment before responding almost grudgingly. “A kilometer north of here, slumped against a tree. Half covered with snow. It would take a miracle for you to find him on your own.” He recited a string of numbers that Ana quickly realized were coordinates. She committed them to memory as best she could, repeating them over and over in her mind.

“I hope you are telling the truth,” she said finally. Cautiously, she lowered her gun slightly. “But why? Why would you tell me this?”

“Some of us still find it difficult to kill our old friends,” he said sardonically. “Or to leave them to die, at the least.” He took a slow step back, apparently mindful of her rifle still pointed at his lower chest. “Now go. Find him.”

She could do nothing but watch as he dissolved into incorporeal darkness and was gone in an instant, his sudden disappearance leaving a silent, bright void in the whiteness of the snowy forest. Were it not for the deep boot prints that remained in his absence, it would seem as if he were never here at all, a vision conjured up by desperation and a distinct lack of sleep.

Shakily, she raised a hand to her communicator. “This is Ana,” she said hoarsely. “I encountered a Talon agent.”

Both Hanzo and Reinhardt came in at the same time, their words incomprehensible as they both tried to speak. Reinhardt eventually won out. “ _Are you okay, Ana? We heard a gunshot_.”

“I’m unhurt,” she replied. She turned away from the place from where Gabriel had disappeared, trying to shake the grim vision of him from her mind.

“ _Did you neutralize the agent?_ ” Hanzo followed up immediately.

“No. It was Reaper.” She spat his name like a curse. Uncertainly, she hesitated. The longer she thought about his words, the more confusing they became. Why would he lead her to Jesse? This was a man who had become a monster, who had ended countless innocent lives and systematically murdered anyone who had known him in his past life. What reason did he have to tell them the truth and not simply lead them into an ambush? “Apparently he wanted to talk with me. He… gave me coordinates. He claims that is where we will find McCree.”

Hanzo let out a strangled snarl. “ _No_ ,” he forced out, his voice rough through her communicator. “ _He_ cannot _have found Jesse_.”

“ _Ana, should we believe him? He’s done nothing but hunt us down since Geneva,_ ” Reinhardt spoke up. He sounded strangely quiet over the poor connection. “ _Though I know we can take him if he tries anything stupid. It would be the last mistake he makes._ ”

“I don’t know if we should believe him. We probably shouldn’t,” Ana admitted. She unzipped one of her side pockets and pulled out her datapad, reading the coordinates that Gabriel had told her into the machine. _48.704614, -120.577412._ Her eyebrows furrowed as the device pinpointed a spot not too far from their location. “But I do think it’s worth pursuing. It’s the only lead we have. The coordinates he gave are plausible.”

Tucking the datapad back into her pocket, she waited for a response. “ _What are the coordinates?_ ” Reinhardt asked. “ _We’ll be ready for them if it’s a trap._ ”

She read the numbers off twice, confirming them to both her teammates. “If what he said was true, his short range communications device should activate before we reach the coordinates.”

“ _Will we have notification when that happens?_ ” Hanzo asked quickly. He had never been on a mission without the usual communications systems, Ana realized. Such missions had grown rare over time as the system improved.

“We will,” she confirmed.

They agreed to reunite before attempting to search the location Gabriel had recited to Ana. All three of them also agreed that they would almost certainly be walking into a trap.

She found Reinhardt first, his massive size making him difficult to miss in the open forest. Hanzo approached them from behind, having travelled too far south by mistake in his attempt to locate them. His hair had begun to come free from its tie, flyaway strands lying loose across his face. He quickly took the lead, making it easier for the rest of them as he broke trail. Several times Ana noticed him reach for his scarf in an apparently unconscious gesture. After the third time he did so she remembered with a pang of guilt that the scarf had been a Christmas gift to him from Jesse.

The cold forced her to bury her face in her own scarf as she hurried after Hanzo and Reinhardt. Despite the newly risen sun, the air remained well below freezing. Occasional soft gusts blew snow down from the pines in glittering puffs that made her shiver when they struck her face. Her ankles were growing tired after so long on snowshoes, but she did not dare slow down. If, by some miracle, Jesse were still alive and where Gabriel had indicated, he would need her help the most.

A sudden beep from her earpiece made her jump. Hanzo stopped in his tracks up ahead, turning to face them as he listened, wide-eyed with nervous anticipation. “ _Short-range signal recognized: Agent McCree._ ”

Ana put a hand to her earpiece to open the line. “Agent McCree, this is Ana. We have a transport ready to pick you up. Do you copy?”

Her words were met with silence. Drawing a deep breath, she tried again. “Agent McCree, do you copy?”

Hanzo cut in over his own device. “Jesse, please respond,” he pleaded.

Again, no answer came. Sighing, Ana let her hand fall from her communicator. “He may have lost his communicator in the storm,” she suggested. Her hopeful words sounded hollow even to her own ears.

Giving a small shake of his head, Hanzo made one last attempt. “Jesse, this is Hanzo. We are on our way. Just… hold on until we get there. I am sorry.” He hesitated, shooting a helpless glare at Ana. “I love you,” he finished quietly.

Almost immediately, the communicator beeped again. “ _Three general messages received. Respond with ‘yes’ if you wish to play messages now –_ “

All three of them responded at once. The recording began with Jesse’s most recent recording, from only two hours previous.

His recording, barely audible over the wind in the background, was slow and labored, at times nearly incoherent. Defeat steeped his every word. Her heart sank as he signed off with a whispered apology. The earlier messages were more coherent, which worried her more than if they had been all the same. Jesse’s condition had clearly deteriorated rapidly as the night progressed, his final message coming at the end of his struggle to continue.

To her surprise, Hanzo continued listening after her messages had ended. Shaking his head slowly, his expression crumpled to one of despair.

“He knew,” Hanzo said softly. “He knew we would be too late.”

He turned away abruptly, covering his face with his hand. His shoulders trembled as he took a stumbling step forward.

“Hanzo,” Ana barked, more harshly than she had intended. “We need you.”

Reinhardt clapped a huge hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “We’ll find him,” he said, repeating his earlier sentiment.

“Too late,” Hanzo said under his breath. He pulled away and kept walking with renewed speed, a look of determination settling in his eyes.

Forging their way onward through the snow, they slowed only as they approached the location that Gabriel had given to Ana to ready their weapons in case of ambush. Hanzo nocked an arrow to his bow long in advance, seeming almost comforted by holding a loaded weapon. Ana scanned the trees warily, her gaze settling on any source of movement, whether on the ground or high in the air. Although most of the tree branches were too thin to support a human weight, a sniper could easily hide among the larger limbs or in a blind in the snow. Small drones could target them even under the relative cover of the forest.

The three of them approached the coordinates with great caution, but when they reached the exact location, they found nothing there. No Talon fighters lying in wait, no bomb set to explode, no Reaper, but also no Jesse.

“Spread out,” Ana ordered, a sick feeling of dread settling in her stomach.

Reinhardt and Hanzo obeyed wordlessly. His arrow safely stowed back in his quiver, Hanzo prodded at mounds of snow with the tip of his bow, seeming both relieved and increasingly worried as every place he looked turned out to be a boulder or a bush instead of a person. Back to the rest of them, Reinhardt lumbered onward, clearing entire drifts of snow with a few sweeps of his hand.

Remembering Gabriel’s words, Ana moved methodically from tree to tree, searching every tree well for any sign of life. Hope slipped away with every moment that passed.

She jumped when Reinhardt’s voice sounded in her earpiece.

“ _I found him._ ”

A jolt of electric fear ran through her as he spoke. His tone was weary, heavy with defeat.

“Where are you?” she asked without thinking. “Does he –“

She broke off as Reinhardt came into view, his back to her as he knelt in the snow besides a blaze of red as bright as a cardinal in winter.

_Jesse’s serape_ , she realized as Hanzo rushed past her. He stopped besides Reinhardt, stricken. Crying out in raw anguish, he cast off his bow and dropped to his knees in the snow, paralyzed by grief.

She had steeled herself for what was to come, but nothing could ever truly prepare her for seeing Jesse like this. Ice crusted his hair and beard, his normally dark skin so ashen it seemed almost blue. Frost froze his eyelids together, forming soft white crystals on his dark lashes. Despite Reinhardt’s efforts to brush the snow from his clothes, chunks clung to his serape and jacket. His right sleeve bore a long slash crusted with rusty dried blood.

Forcing herself to think clearly, she pushed Reinhardt aside and pulled off a glove, pressing her fingers to the cold skin at side of Jesse’s throat. For an agonizing few moments she waited, feeling nothing. Then, faintly, she felt it. A sluggish _thump_ , nowhere near as strong as it should have been, but there nonetheless.

“Hanzo,” she said sharply. “Get me the thermal blankets and two of the biotic emitters. _Now._ ”

“He is not…?”

Momentarily dumbstruck, Hanzo leapt to the task, digging through his backpack fervently. Reinhardt let out a shout of triumph, almost certainly too positive given the circumstances.

“We need to act quickly,” she continued, opening her own pack. “His pulse is very weak. There isn’t much I can do for him out here.” She tried to tamp down the fear that after all they had done, Jesse’s body would give out before they reached the transport.

Hanzo wrapped him gently in the blankets, murmuring soft, unintelligible words meant for no one else. To her shock, Ana realized that his cheeks were streaked with tears.

He straightened up abruptly once the gear was in place, looking away to dry his eyes the back of his hand. “Ready,” he announced hoarsely.

His hammer secured to his back, Reinhardt stooped to lift Jesse’s unresponsive body. Jesse, by no means a small man, seemed as light as a child to him.

“We’ll make it back,” he reassured Hanzo, who followed closely, unwilling to take his eyes off of Jesse. “He’s been through worse than this.”

Ana could only hope Reinhardt was right.

It was only once they had already begun the long walk back that she realized that Gabriel had told the truth. She still found it difficult to believe that Talon would let them leave so easily, but the ambush that she anticipated never came. Instead, out of the corner of her eye, never clearly enough that she could truly say it was even there, she thought she saw a dark figure follow through the trees, a shade whose presence was as unsettling as it was familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tend to avoid using untranslated foreign languages in my writing, but _Inshallah_ is so ubiquitous to Egyptian Arabic that I felt it was appropriate to include here. Literally it means "God willing", and it is often used when one wishes that one can fulfill a request, but can make no promises. 
> 
> I had hoped this would be two chapters, but it looks like it's gonna be three, with this short one preceding the finale. Apologies to all Jesse fans - the final chapter will, of course, be about him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back safely at the Watchpoint and recovering from his brush with death, Jesse finds that some questions are easier to answer than others.

Jesse’s return from nearly freezing to death was slow and painful, a drugged haze of sharp light and sound of which he could remember little with great confidence. According to Angela, he had been taken to a hospital in Washington before being flown back to Gibraltar, his condition too dire to delay intensive treatment by even the few extra hours it would take to fly back to the Watchpoint. He had to take her word for it, having no recollection of it himself. His first relatively solid memories were of staring at the medbay ceiling, wondering why his feet felt like they were on fire.

He never liked taking visitors while in the medbay. There was a vulnerability that went along with being seen practically bedridden and wearing little more than a hospital gown, even if his injury had been for a noble cause. Although he knew it was irrational, he could not help but feel ashamed. Anyone who wanted to see him could wait the few days it would take before he was discharged.

He made an exception for Hanzo. As impatient as he was to see him, he could imagine that Hanzo felt far worse. From his own experience, he could have all the reassurances in the world that the man he loved was safe, but he could never truly believe it until he saw him with his own eyes.

From where he lay listlessly rereading the first few paragraphs of the preliminary mission report, he could just barely make out Hanzo’s voice, quiet and muffled beyond the partitions as he talked with Angela just outside his earshot. Straining to hear, Jesse caught only a scattering of words, none of which he could piece together into anything coherent.

Frustrated, he dropped his datapad onto the bed besides him. Just as he did, the voices stopped and brisk footsteps approached, slowing as they reached the partitions.

A smile broke out across his face as Hanzo stepped around the corner cautiously, Jesse’s red serape clutched tightly in his arms. Hanzo’s eyebrows knit with concern as he spotted him. He hung back uncertainly, a range of emotions crossing his face. It seemed to Jesse as though he had run through this moment in his head countless times, and now that he was actually here, he was not sure of how to react.

“It’s alright, Hanzo,” Jesse called to him hoarsely. Speaking still pained his throat after days of being intubated.

Hanzo nevertheless approached with caution before pulling over the ugly, hard plastic chair that Angela had used earlier. He watched Jesse for several moments, his eyes catching on the collection of wires and tubes that still tethered him to the machinery surrounding his bed.

“Jesse,” he said softly, reaching out to take Jesse’s hand in his, carefully avoiding both his reddened, frostbitten fingernails and the IV line at the back of his hand. “I did not think I would ever see you again.”

“Wasn’t sure I’d see you, either, hun,” Jesse replied, trying to keep his tone light. “Guess I’m just lucky. Like a cat, got nine lives, y’know?”

Hanzo laughed humorlessly, shaking his head,. “No matter how many lives you have left, never do that again.” His voice quaked slightly as he spoke. “Even when I found you, I thought you were lost to me.”

His eyes darted to the partition as if worried someone might be watching. With a sigh, he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Jesse’s lips, his long eyelashes brushing his cheek before he pulled away.

“I was going to scold you,” he said thickly, fighting back his emotion. “It is hard to, seeing you like this… But you were so reckless, Jesse. You should have turned back, or never gone in the first place. _Something_.”

“Had to follow orders,” Jesse offered in his defense. “And before you go blaming Ana, it ain’t her fault. I might’ve made the same call, had I been in her shoes there. Anyway, just means we gotta update the protocols. Don’t want someone else getting frozen.”

Hanzo gave him an incredulous look. “You speak of it so casually. You did not see yourself. Do you even know how close you were to death?”

“Oh, I know,” Jesse said. He shrugged blithely. “Awful close, sounded like. It’s just a way of dealing. Not the first time I’ve been a half step away from buyin’ the farm.”

At least his facetiousness made it hard for Hanzo to get too emotional. “Ridiculous,” he muttered. He gave his hand a small squeeze. “But I would miss your ridiculousness.”

“I’ll remember to be extra ridiculous, just for you, hun,” Jesse assured him cheekily. He sobered quickly. “I do understand, Hanzo. I owe you my life for finding me out there. No idea how you did it, comms down and all. God, I was sure I was gonna freeze solid.”

“I was not the one to find you,” Hanzo corrected him. “It was Reinhardt. Ana really was the one who saved your life. I felt… helpless.” He looked as if there was more that he wanted to say, but he seemed to think better of it. “I did manage to save your serape,” he offered, holding the scarlet wool out to Jesse.

Jesse accepted it with a smile, burying his face in the comforting fabric and inhaling deeply to smell the musty fabric and cigar smoke that he had grown so accustomed to over the years. “Really glad you got this before they could cut if off, sweetheart. My favorite shirt got all cut to bits.”

“The red one?” Hanzo asked, dismayed. “You looked so handsome in it.”

“Yeah, it was the red one,” Jesse confirmed ruefully. He let the serape fall to his lap, a comfortingly familiar weight. “That nice jacket you got me, too. Should’ve known better than to wear them on a mission, y’know?”

“I am certain they can be replaced,” Hanzo said. “Unlike you.”

Feeling his cheeks flush, Jesse looked down at his hand, flexing his sore fingers tentatively. “I dunno about that,” he muttered.

“Nonsense.”

“Well, I suppose an exact copy might be a little hard to come by. Maybe we could find a budget version,” Jesse teased. Biting his lip, he remembered what he had meant to ask Hanzo earlier. “Have you seen Mei at all? I heard she was discharged. Wondered if she was doin’ alright after all that.”

Hanzo exhaled deeply, seeming almost relieved at the change of subjects. “Yes, I did see her earlier. She is doing very well, given the circumstances. It sounded like she would be off crutches in only a week or so, with Angela’s treatment.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “She holds nothing against you or Ana for what happened, you know. Actually, she was quite concerned about you.”

“I guess I could let her stop by.” Jesse considered. “Don’t usually like visitors much, but she got it pretty bad, too.”

Nodding in agreement, Hanzo rearranged one of the corners of Jesse’s blankets, not looking him in the eye. “The whole mission was a disaster. Two out of three agents injured in some way, in part due to negligence in mission planning. We did recover the drives from your bag, though.”

“I suppose Winston thinks this all was worth it,” Jesse said darkly.

“No, actually,” Hanzo replied. “He is well aware that it was Pyrrhic victory.”

Jesse sighed. Although he would rather Winston recognize it than not, he was not at all reassured. He and Mei had been lucky to escape even with the injuries they had received. Both could easily have died instead. Distracted by how much the scabbed-over slash on his arm itched, he reached over to scratch at the tight bandage with his prosthetic, finally in place again after having been removed following the accident.

Quickly as a striking snake, Hanzo seized his metal fingers. “No,” he said firmly. “You will only slow the healing.”

It wasn’t worth the effort to argue. Jesse allowed Hanzo to pull his hand away with only a reproachful look in protest. He settled back into his pillows, letting his eyes close as Hanzo ran gentle fingers through his tangled hair, pausing occasionally to slowly pull out snarls. Unconsciously, he let his mind wander back to the frigid mountains, the initial shock of Mei being shot, his frenzied struggle with the knife-wielding agent, the hours of trudging helplessly through the snow as hope and strength gradually left him. He nearly shuddered just from the memory of the icy wind slicing through his jacket like knives.

The end was less clear. His memory and actual events were plainly incongruent. Even if he _had_ seen Reaper, he shouldn’t be alive to tell the story. He knew as well as anyone that the Gabe he had once known was gone.

“Angela tell you anything about…” he gestured to himself vaguely.

“Not much,” Hanzo admitted. He sat back, letting his hand fall away from Jesse’s hair. “There are privacy rules. Unless it is mission-relevant, of course.”

“Yeah, gotta be married to know all the details,” Jesse grumbled. “Can’t even sit with someone ‘less they give permission otherwise.”

A strange look passed over Hanzo’s face momentarily. “I saw some for myself when we found you. Ana worked very hard to keep you from complete organ failure. You seem to have improved very quickly, though.

“Miracle of modern medicine, that’s what I am,” Jesse said with a small half-smile. “Would have taken weeks to get this much better a few decades ago. Least, that’s what Angela told me.”

Hanzo sat slightly straighter in his chair, his eyes not quite seeing Jesse’s face. “She asked me to note if anything about you seemed unusual. ‘Off’ is the word she used.”

Jesse grunted. “Worried about that,” he muttered. “Brain damage and all. I dunno, hun, do I sound ‘off’ to you?”

“No worse than usual,” Hanzo said with a small smile.

“Thank you kindly,” Jesse said dryly. He paused, thinking again about what he had thought he had seen. After talking for so long, he was beginning to feel tired, but some things needed to be said. “My mind did sorta fall apart near the end there, though.”

“Severe hypothermia often causes confusion,” Hanzo stated.

“Yeah… but this… I dunno, Hanzo. This was more than confusion, really. I was straight-up hallucinating. Thought I saw Gabe again. But it wasn’t really Gabe, not like I knew him. It was that thing he is now, Reaper.” He looked up at Hanzo, whose face was unreadable. “And it was pretty damn weird. He just… it was like Reaper saying all the things that Gabe would have. ‘ _Get up, Jesse, you have to keep moving, you’ll die if you don’t._ ’“

He looked to Hanzo for an explanation, but received nothing in response. “He stayed with me,” he said finally. “Told me to hang on just a little while longer. And I tried, I really did.” Rubbing his still sore hand down his face, he exhaled sharply. “God, it just seemed so real. I get it, I was just losin’ my marbles, but y’know.”

Hanzo nodded slowly. “I admit that it seems improbable that Reaper would do such a thing, but those hallucinations you had may well have saved your life.”

“Reaper might not do that, but Gabe would,” Jesse insisted. “I knew him, Hanzo. Before he turned into what he is now.”

“You said this was all a hallucination?” Hanzo asked.

“Had to’ve been,” Jesse said ruefully.

“I suppose you must be right,” Hanzo muttered, his voice low and thoughtful.

Eyes flickering to Hanzo’s face, Jesse noticed the deep dark circles beneath his lower eyelids that, along with his slumping shoulders, showed how truly exhausted he was. Cautiously, he reached over to Hanzo and pulled him into a gentle embrace, taking care not to tug too hard on the machinery to which he was still connected. Hanzo tentatively wrapped his arms around Jesse’s back as he lightly rested his head against his chest, as if listening to his heartbeat. It was clearly an uncomfortable position, forcing him to lean heavily on the railing of Jesse’s bed, but he made no complaint.

He reached up to comb his fingers through Hanzo’s hair, much as Hanzo had done to him earlier, inhaling deeply to take in his comforting scent. “How long’ve you been up, hun?” he asked.

His breath hitched slightly as Hanzo leaned up to press a kiss to his lips. “Almost as long as you were here,” he admitted. “It was… difficult, seeing how close you were to death, and yet being so powerless to help. Receiving only minimal information on your condition did not help either.”

Jesse planted another kiss on Hanzo’s forehead, reaching up to brush his flyaway hair from his face with still-sore fingers. “Shouldn’t worry ‘bout me so much,” he murmured. “Turned out just fine. Didn’t get my hot chocolate with ya down in Winthrop, but that’s about it far as the really bad stuff goes. Not even gonna lose my toes. Pretty glad, honestly. I’ve already got the amputee experience once, ain’t too keen on havin’ round two on that front.”

“And for that I am relieved,” Hanzo replied, his voice muffled in the serape that lay across Jesse’s body.

Hanzo stayed in that position until his arms became numb and he was reluctantly forced to sit up again. Only after Angela came in and reminded him of Jesse’s need for rest did he slowly begin to get ready to leave.

“Need’a promise me you’ll get some sleep, alright, hun?” Jesse said as Hanzo rose stiffly from the ugly plastic chair where he had sat for the last couple hours. “Ain’t no use making yourself sick waiting for me to get better.”

“I think I can sleep now, knowing you are on the way to being well again,” Hanzo said. He gave Jesse’s hand one last soft squeeze before picking up the serape and gently tucking around Jesse’s shoulders. “There. Now you look more like you.”

“Thanks, hun,” Jesse replied with a small smile. “Now, you get yourself to bed. I love you, okay? I’ll still be here tomorrow, promise.”

“I love you, too, you reckless man,” Hanzo said softly. He began to walk towards the partition, his shoulders slumped from exhaustion. Just before he was out of sight, he stopped abruptly. “I almost forgot. Ana asked if she could speak with you tomorrow. I think you should accept.”

“How could I turn her down if it’s you telling me I should?” Jesse asked rhetorically. “Alright, I’ll see her tomorrow. And you, too. Now, bed. Go.”

With a small roll of his eyes, Hanzo turned to leave. “Good night, Jesse.”

Once he had gone, Jesse slumped back on his pillows, completely exhausted. The night when he would again be able to sleep in his own bed with Hanzo could not come quickly enough.

***

To Jesse’s surprise, Hanzo did not visit the following morning. After a few hours of wondering where the usually early-riser was, he received a text message with an apology stating that he was coming down with something and would instead visit later, dependent on Angela’s determination of whether he was contagious or not.

Jesse sent him a few messages of commiseration, hoping that he felt better soon. On top of wishing Hanzo the best, he was beginning to feel bored with the medbay. Any distraction would be welcome.

Nevertheless, he felt a twinge of nervousness when Angela informed him that Ana was waiting to speak with him.

“Send her in,” he said gruffly. He tugged the serape around his shoulders, hastily combing his fingers through his hair in an attempt to make himself somewhat more presentable. It was amazing how a few days of doing nothing but lying around could ruin one’s appearance.

Moments later, Ana stepped briskly into view, wearing a headscarf as green as new leaves in the springtime.

Jesse nodded to her in greeting. “Mornin’.”

“Good morning to you, too,” she replied with a smile. “You look so much better than when I last saw you.”

“Wouldn’t be hard,” he said dryly.

She sighed, smile sliding off her face to be replaced by an expression of mild concern. “No, I suppose not. You are feeling better today, though?”

“Better than a few days ago.”

Ana grimaced. “Jesse, I’m truly sorry about what happened on the mission. I made the wrong call, and I take responsibility for that.”

“Nah, it’s alright,” Jesse muttered. He looked away, lost in thought. “So, Hanzo said you had stuff you wanted to tell me.”

“You always were right to the point,” Ana commented. “I did want to talk with you, that’s true.” She paused, frowning thoughtfully. “I wondered if you remembered anything from before when we picked you up. Any people. Talon agents, perhaps.”

Chewing his lip, Jesse considered how best to answer. “You talked with Hanzo last night?”

“Well, yes, I did,” Ana admitted, “but I planned to speak with you about this even before doing that.”

Jesse grunted. “Well, like I told him, I would’ve put money on having seen Gabe. Or Reaper, I s’pose. Y’know what I mean. Reaper, but he talked like Gabe, mostly.”

“Tell me what you remember,” Ana said softly.

Jesse shot her a somewhat incredulous look. “This an interrogation now?”

“No!” Ana laughed, though the humor did not quite reach her expression. “Not at all. I believe it would be helpful to know, though.”

“Gotcha.” _Basically an interrogation, then._ “Right. Well, I was havin’ a rough go of it. Right after I sent that last message to y’all. Anyway, was just kinda sittin’ in the snow and then fuckin’ Reaper shows up. He’s got his shotguns pointed right at my chest, and I’m about ninety percent sure I’m gonna die right there.” He hesitated, chilled by the thought of those twin shotguns aimed at his heart. “Ask him if he’s gonna shoot me, and instead of doing that, he tells me I gotta get up and keep going. I mean, I tried, but I couldn’t, cuz by then I was pretty much frozen.”

“He had a change of heart,” Ana said slowly. “Do you think he was sent to kill you?”

Jesse scoffed, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t even know if any of this actually happened for sure.”

Nodding, Ana sat back in her chair. She looked down at the pile of “get well” cards on the small table next to Jesse’s bed, turning over the one on top without seeming to actually see it. “It’s possible,” she said.

“Well, either way, he thought better of it, I guess. He… God, this is gonna sound stupid.” He broke off, feeling somewhat embarrassed. “He stayed with me. I guess it was kinda a comfort, in a way, not to be alone then.”

It was a deeply personal thing for him to admit, and made him feel more vulnerable than he would like, even with a person he trusted as sincerely as Ana. “I’m not convinced I didn’t just imagine the whole damn thing,” he added quickly.

“You keep saying that,” Ana observed. She replaced the card back on Jesse’s table, folding her hands in her lap. “I think there might be more truth to it than you realize. I saw Reaper, Jesse. I spoke with him, actually, when we were looking for you. He was the one who led us to you, by giving us your coordinates. It’s… it’s quite likely that you’re alive because of him.”

Jesse took in her words silently, stunned. He fidgeted with the tattered edge of his serape, unable to meet Ana’s gaze. Having Gabriel watch him as he froze to death was one thing. Having him take action to prevent that was another entirely.

“He didn’t try to shoot you?” he asked eventually.

“No.” Ana looked away. “I tried to shoot him, actually, before he convinced me to listen to him. Honestly, when he gave us coordinates, we fully expected an ambush. But instead we found you.”

“Surprised y’all listened to him at all,” Jesse said. “I might not’ve. Actually, definitely wouldn’t’ve. Would’ve shot him on the spot.”

Ana turned back to him, her expression grim. “Jesse, we were running out of time,” she said softly. “It was reckless, I agree, but we had to try. Imagine if it were you looking for Hanzo.”

Biting his lip, Jesse nodded reluctantly. The image of a shivering, freezing Hanzo in a snowstorm swam before his eyes unwelcome. 

“Why’d he do it?” he asked, trying to push the thought from his mind. “Just doesn’t make sense. He’s spent the last couple years tryin’ to off all of us.”

“It doesn’t seem to make sense, no,” Ana admitted. “We’ll have to see what happens.”

“Might be trying to soften us up,” Jesse muttered bitterly.

“That could be,” Ana agreed. “I wouldn’t put it past him to try something like that. He always was very good at manipulating people. This time he seemed almost… reluctant, I suppose. Conflicted. It was very unlike the Reaper that we’ve grown used to.”

“Huh.” Jesse returned to toying with his serape. When he spoke again, it was with great caution. “I think maybe there’s still some of old Gabe in there, under all that mess he’s become. I’d like to think so, at least. I dunno if we could ever get him back, but…” 

Ana finished the thought for him. “There might be some hope now.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway,” Ana said loudly, as if to clear the air. “That’s what happened on our end. There’s more we’ll have to discuss at the next briefing, once you’re able to attend.”

“Hopefully soon,” Jesse grumbled.

Letting out a laugh, Ana shook her head with amusement. “First time I’ve ever seen Jesse McCree want to go to a briefing. I thought this day would never come.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Nah, not looking forward to sitting through Winston and Hanzo goin’ at it like cats and dogs for two hours. Just want outta this room.”

“It would be easier if you would actually let people visit you,” Ana pointed out.

“And have everyone see me as an invalid,” he groused. “Don’t think so.”

“You’re embarrassed.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jesse said a little too defensively. He tried to recover quickly. “Just think it’s awkward.”

Ana scoffed. “You suffering from hypothermia is surely no worse than Lúcio getting a concussion when he fell down the stairs six months ago, is it? Or when Hanzo slipped on the ice in Russia and broke his ankle? I remember him practically holding court in here after that happened. How about when I nearly cut my finger off trying to cut bread for Fareeha?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Jesse rolled his eyes. 

She stood up abruptly, pushing her chair back with a painful screech. “Well. I have to be on the other end of the building in five minutes, so I had better get going. You take care of yourself, now. Is there anything I can bring you in the meantime?”

Jesse put on his most winsome smile. “Smokes?”

“Absolutely not.” Ana shook her finger at him. “Not unless you really do want to lose your toes to frostbite.”

“Worth a shot,” Jesse sighed. “Alright, you better get going.”

“You need to take care of yourself, Jesse,” Ana said, turning to leave. “Don’t ever do that to us again. Especially Hanzo.”

“Workin’ on it,” Jesse muttered. One could never make any promises.

*** 

His Irish coffee would have to wait, but Jesse finally got his hot chocolate with Hanzo on the evening of his discharge from the medbay.

The hot cocoa had come as a surprise to Jesse; although he knew Hanzo secretly adored sweet drinks, Hanzo claimed to have never used hot cocoa mix before. Nevertheless, just minutes after escorting Jesse back to his room he returned with two steaming hot mugs, both giving off the unmistakable smell of hot chocolate and stuffed to the brim with marshmallows.

A cool breeze off the Strait made for perfect weather to sit and enjoy their drinks on the balcony nearest to Jesse’s room. They sat with shoulders barely touching, watching boats sail over water brightened by the ever-changing glitter of the sun’s rays. It was not the setting Jesse had imagined for sharing hot cocoa, but in this moment he wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

“Didn’t even know you liked marshmallows,” he muttered, fishing one out with his spoon. “Gonna have to make s’mores sometime. Ain’t nothin’ better on a summer’s night than a bonfire and s’mores.”

“I will have to hold you to that,” Hanzo said with a smile.

A smudge of chocolate marred his lips. Jesse reached across their mugs to wipe it away, grinning at how Hanzo wrinkled his nose when he saw the mess he had made. “It’s better in your mouth than on it, Hanzo,” he teased with a suggestive wink.

“Rude,” Hanzo huffed. He shivered slightly, his t-shirt not quite warm enough now that the afternoon heat had dissipated.

Jesse shrugged his serape off and tucked it around Hanzo’s shoulders one-handed. “Better?”

“Much,” Hanzo said, burying his nose in the woolen folds. As much as he complained about its stench, he always seemed to enjoy sharing it with Jesse. His expression turned to one of contemplation as he looked up at out across the horizon.

“What’s up?” Jesse asked, noticing the change instantly. “You’ve got that look.”

“Mhh,” Hanzo looked down at his mug again, giving the partially melted marshmallows at the top a few stirs. “I was thinking.”

“Weird. Didn’t know y--hey!” he yelped as Hanzo gave him a good-natured elbow. “Jesus, could’ve made me spill my cocoa.”

Hanzo continued stirring his drink, his expression quickly falling back into one of deep thought. Jesse sobered. “Did something happen?”

“Not exactly.” Hanzo sighed. “Athena found that our transport was hacked.”

“Shit,” Jesse muttered. “That why comms were so fucked up?”

“No.” Hanzo’s answer was surprisingly firm. “No, the hacking did not occur until after we retrieved you. Someone was watching the surveillance feeds.”

That was not at all the answer that Jesse had expected. He frowned, taking a long sip of his cocoa. “Why the hell’d anyone do that? Someone really wanna see my frostbit ass?”

Hanzo shot him a look of mild annoyance. “Ana thinks it was Reaper, Jesse.”

The realization hit him hard. “He was still watching.”

“That is what she thinks, at least,” Hanzo said. He tugged the serape tighter around his shoulders. “Does it seem believable to you?”

Jesse took a moment to think. He shifted slightly, having grown stiff from sitting in one position on the hard balcony floor for too long. The sun was beginning to set, casting a faint chill on the open balcony. “It’s possible. Still not sure why.”

“That is what we will need to discover.” Hanzo took one last long drink of his hot cocoa before pulling himself to his feet. “Shall we go inside?”

“Yeah.” Jesse accepted Hanzo’s help in getting to his feet, feeling slightly unsteady with the sudden change of position. “So how’d you like the chocolate?”

“It was good,” Hanzo said as he held the door for Jesse to pass. “But not as good as seeing you again.”

Part of Jesse wanted to laugh at Hanzo for being an old sap. Another part wanted to kiss him right there for it. In the end, the second part won out. It was not how he imagined kissing Hanzo after coming back from the mission and getting their hot cocoa, but at that moment, it seemed near perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Pyrrhic victory is one in which the casualties of the victorious side are great enough that the result may be tantamount to a defeat. It is named for a battle fought by Pyrrhus of Epirus, about which Plutarch said "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."  
> ......  
> Anyway!
> 
> Thank you for sticking with this 'til the end! I enjoyed reading all the comments. Sorry for making y'all wait so long - grad school is no joke.
> 
> Big thanks also for Tsoleil of the SW Discord server (DoctorQui on here) for being an amazing beta reader (and leaving the BEST comments) and Dealusis for finishing up. Tsol, you got me to use contractions in my writing, and I'm not sure if I'm relieved or horrified!
> 
> By the way, you can follow me on Tumblr at unlimitedpoptarts.tumblr.com. I post a lot of video game stuff and a fair amount of animals, plants, and mushrooms!


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